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THE REGION OF MURCIA
Murcia province is bordered by the provinces Andalucía, Almería, Granada and; Castilla-La Mancha (the province of Albacete), which was historically connected to Murcia until 1833, the Valencian Community (province of Alicante) and the Mediterranean Sea. The highest mountain is Revolcadores (2015 m).
The community measures 11,313 km² and has a population of 1.2 million, of whom one-third live in the capital.
The region is a major producer of fruits, vegetables, and flowers produced for Spain and the rest of Europe. Excellent wineries have developed near the towns of Bullas, Yecla, and Jumilla, as well as olive oil near Moratalla. Murcia is mainly a warm region which has made it very suitable for agriculture. However the precipitations are little and the supply of water is a hot subject, since in addition to the traditional demand for crops, there is now a need to provide water for the booming tourist developments proliferating along the coastal region of Murcia. Some water is supplied from the Segura River (Río Segura) which in turn needs to be topped up from reserves in Castilla La Mancha. However several de-salinisation units are being built to alleviate the shortage, but this idea is being challenged by some ecologists as being detrimental to the sea life, owing to the discharge of saline waste that will be necessary.The main attractions of inland Murcia are the wonderful national and protected natural park, the "Sierra De Espuña, the natural baths and health resorts of Archena and Fortuna and in the coastal region the lovely smooth water of the inland sea the "Mar Menor" (little sea) to the east of Cartagena and the city of Cartagena itself.Murcia province contains such a variety; mountainous regions, flat farming areas and many golf complexes springing up inland from the Costa Cálida and the long, and in places still unspoilt coastline.
Having come into force on July 1st. this law is intended to clean up the Spanish property industry, hopefully putting and end to the land in grabbing by greedy developers and corrupt council officials, especially in the provinces of Valencia and Murcia.
The new law covers three main areas: Land legal system, Property valuation and most importantly Citizens rights and duties.
The law specifically addresses the urban sprawl and is concerned with sustainable managed growth and the protection of the environment.
Transparency is the key, it now being against the law not to make public the details of exactly who will benefit from any re-classification of land and also ensuring that public officials having links to property developers or a particular piece of land, will be obliged to disclose this publicly as part of the planning process.
The law expressly rule on: ownership rights, land owner's obligations, the right to have a decent home and the right of citizens to participate in urban planning proceedings.
Hopefully this will put an end to alcaldes (mayors) becoming millionaires overnight, having been bribed to illegally authorize the re-classification of rural land (this should only be authorized by regional or national government, not local) and the grabbing of land from individual house owners to make an urbanization, charging them for infrastructure they do not want or need, quite the reverse of compensating them, which would be the norm in most countries.
More than half the residents on the Padron list are foreigners
As at July 2007, the Padron municipal list of residents in Torrevieja has broken the 100,000 people barrier, and more than half of them, 52,700 are foreigners of more than a hundred different nationalities.
The British lead the number of foreigners in the town with 12,353 registered, followed by 5,797 Scandinavians and 3,638 Germans.
However many expats are too lazy or devious to sign on the padron in their respective towns robbing the town halls of essential funding by the national and regional governments. Many people believe that the official number of British expats in Spain is less than 30% of the true figure. But many of them are hiding their homes in Spain from the British authorities so that they can carry on claiming the various hand outs they receive.
Road access planned for the new international airport at Corvera, have been designed handle over 18,500 vehicles a day and 3 million a year.
Two of the three are planned from the A-30, and the Murcia government is awaiting authorisation from the Development Ministry, after which work on the northern access is expected to start this October, with a completion period of 10 months.
Southern access will be from the MU-601.
The new airport will have a 45 metre-wide 3 kilometre runway, with capacity to handle 15,000 aircrafts a year. The airport is designed with an initial annual operating capacity of 1.5 million passengers.
A vast development will involve 21 million square metres of land and is estimated to cost about four billion euros to complete. Environmentalists are opposed to the ambitious project but the Murcia regional government, which is behind the Cope development, argues that it is, in fact, an environmentally-friendly idea. The construction density will be very low, it says, with the figure standing at 0.14 square metres per square metre. By planning future development properly and including rigorous requirements as to zoning, supervision, re-cycling and waste disposal, the government can be sure that the highest standards are met, it is claimed. The design has been prepared by major international firms with extensive experience around the world of preparing high-quality low-impact developments. A feature of the plan is that, though the project is close to the coast, the majority of buildings will be set well back and there will be no construction within 500 metres of the sea. The actual coastline itself will be unaffected and will remain in its original condition. This is achieved by having a single canal which gives access into an inland network of moorings grouped into separate lagoons. It is forecast that there will be a total of 2,000 moorings available eventually.
The Marina de Cope will see a tram system running north to south along the development thus reducing the need for vehicles and for parking areas. Access will be easy from the new Vera motorway and Murcia's new airport at Corvera is expected to be only 30 or 40 minutes drive away when it opens in a few years' time. It is expected that the development will feature some 20 hotels and about 9,000 houses for leisure use. There will also be five golf courses, ten football fields, the marina and a congress centre. A polo centre is also a possibility. The government says that the intention that the Cope development will be in the same league as high-class resort areas of places such as Cannes and Nice. The development is taking place in an area that is under the responsibilities of the town halls of Lorca and Águilas and last week local councilors in both places voted in favour of the project, allowing planning and other work to move ahead. The project is classified as being an official regional project of the Murcia Comunidad Autónoma. There is opposition, however, with left-wing parties voicing their concern. The PP, which is strongly behind the scheme and which controls the regional government says that Cope is the major tourism project of Murcia and that it will significantly contribute to developing economic activity throughout the region, and particularly in Águilas. A left-wing opponent, however, described the go-ahead decisions as another step in the destruction of the last remaining areas of virgin coastline in the Mediterranean.
bravenet.com